


Florida Man Demanding Back Pay for Time it Took Him to Get Dressed for Work

by advancedclass



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 08:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20404804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advancedclass/pseuds/advancedclass





	Florida Man Demanding Back Pay for Time it Took Him to Get Dressed for Work

He rose long before murky morning light would begin to filter through the tiny window set high on the wall of his proportionally tiny basement apartment. It seemed like only moments before that he had collapsed into bed, pressing his sweat-dampened face into the crumpled excuse for a pillow but when he unlocked his phone the tiny clock in the bottom left-hand corner (just underneath one clawed foot of the cartoon alligator that served as his background - the alligator was dressed for a performance of Swan Lake because of irony, or post-modernism, or a fetish) confirmed time had passed and it was now very technically morning.

In an attempt to conserve time, as he did every 'morning', he ate a protein bar, showered, pissed, brushed his teeth, and shaved at the same time (or at least in quick succession in the tiny cramped rectangle of his bathroom). He nicked his face and had to shake blood and foam off his toothbrush, but otherwise the efficiency attempt was successful.

It was also necessary and, if he wanted to reclaim some fraction of his private life, he had to maximize that efficiency, scrape every second off the time the socially necessary ablutions took, until he could, perhaps, try to reconnect with his girlfriend.

Or, at the very least, find the time to text her and re-establish a line of communication.

He missed her.

He missed their apartment, which had been small, but was not a glorified closet in a dank basement that always smelled faintly of mud and decay. In size, it was a palace compared to the cube he was technically living in, and there had been more than one window, windows which let in light and hope and the sight of what was, admittedly, another, almost identical apartment building, but it was an improvement over the weeds growing up around his tiny barely-a-window, a 'view' that was occasionally varied when a storm or a fight blew or knocked garbage up against the mud-smeared glass. It had smelled of Alice's perfume and the dubious home remedies she tried to deal with her reoccurring dandruff.

It had been, he now realized, heaven, and he had forsaken it in the pursuit of a better paying job.

This was probably how Satan felt after the Fall, when he looked around Hell and realized he was the Lord of nothing but rotting dirt and bugs and other totally gross stuff.

Patching the cut on his face with a piece of toilet paper, he glumly continued the morning routine.

He braced himself and began to get dressed for work.

An hour later, 67% dressed, disaster struck. Although he could have sworn he was taking all the necessary precautions, they hadn't been prescribed with damp basement apartments in mind. The humidity had caused one of the bolts on his suspenders to rust in place, and try as he might, he couldn't get at the right angle to force it loose without risking stripping the nut. Swearing, he undressed, found the anti-rusty lubricant in his work bag, and laboriously applied it, twisting carefully and slowly with the correct size of wrench. By the time the problem had been corrected and he'd begun getting dressed again, he was an hour behind schedule. Attempts to rush only made things worse, his fingers fumbling and his hands sweaty. He needed to stop and breathe, slowly and focused, meditation-style, for five quiet minutes, but he didn't have time.

He was almost two hours late for work and glumly accepted Form 56-L(U), although he had no idea when he would find the time to complete it.

Accepting a job as a robot conductor on the steampunk monorail had been the worst decision he ever made.


End file.
